hellloooooo everyone!
i cannot believe that one - its august 18th already, and two - that it has been a few weeks since my last post! i am very sorry! the times that i have been using the internet lately have been dedicated to working on my apps for grad school and i didnt realize how lax i had been on keeping this updated! i will do my best to fill you in on what i have been up to since then! the other thing is that from here on out i will no longer be able to include pictures on my blog because heather, the volunteer who i was borrowing the memory card reader from and one of my bffs here, has left to go home. so my apologies, but from now on my blog will be strictly narration.
ok so where to start...well i will begin with the weekend following safari during which i went to kisumu with two of the volunteers that i have been living with the last couple of months as well as two of the men that we work with in kibera. the guys wanted to introduce us to their families, as well as show us their hometown, and we wanted to go on an adventure to the western side of kenya so after minimal planning - we were off!
we met the boys (jack and dan) at the bus station in the city center early and boarded the bus for an 8 hour ride to kisumu. during most of the ride i enjoyed the 90s throwbacks that the kenyan radio station provided for our listening pleasure (heather and i have had a love hate relationship with the music here, on one side its great to hear the songs that remind us of our younger years, but on the other side i have heard enough power ballads and slow jams to realize why i have moved on from that musical genre). sooooo 8 quick hours later we arrive in kisumu. as soon as we get off the bus i can feel the temperature difference. that is one thing that continues to amaze me here - every time i leave nairobi the climate is dramatically different! you would think that in a county that is about the same size as texas that the climate would stay relatively uniform, but it was significantly warmer and more humid in kisumu than in nairobi.
anywho, after getting off the bus we headed to a matatu station to head to our first destination of the weekend, dans house. the usual chaos of the matatu station greeted us, with the locals grabbing at heather, abby, and i trying to get us to not only ride in their matatu, but also to try and get us to purchase something from them. it continues to make me laugh at the selection of goods that are available for purchase from the people milling about the stations. for example, when we were sitting in the matatu waiting for it to fill up so we could leave, many, many people would come up to the window trying to sell anything from candy and snacks, to more unique items such as titanic memorabilia (cds, books, photo albums) or an array of underwear (still in the package of course). it never fails to amaze and entertain me what people will sell on the streets. after the matatu had supposedly "reached maximum" we were off for the two hour ride to dans house. in typical matatu fashion though, we stopped on the way to pick up more passengers. we began the journey with the "max" 14 people, and by the time we got to dans, we had 27 people and a chicken...yeah. it was a bit cramped to say the least. definitely the most ridiculous ride i have experienced here in kenya.
once we exited the matatu we were forced to hire a taxi to dans house because it had rained earlier and the roads were now a river, and we were unable to walk the rest of the way. dan found a man who had a truck and we piled in for the final leg of our journey...about a half mile from where we got the taxi the driver (who obviously had limited driving experience) got the truck stuck in the mud. everyone piled out and the guys attempted to push the car out of the mud. the driver though did not understand the principle of driving a manual car and was not managing to get the car into a gear and was instead trying to rev the car in neutral. now, i am no manual expert, but i could see the problem and thus tried to explain what he was doing wrong....as usual, i had a hard time making myself understandable since i speak in such my fast-paced english and the driver did not understand what i was saying. we decided to walk the rest of the way to dans and left the driver to get himself out of the mud....when we were leaving the next day the car was not there anymore so he must have found a way out lol.
soooo after MANY hours of cramped travel we arrived at dans!!!! we were all hungry and excited to eat and go to bed, which is what we did. the food was amazing and dans family was so wonderful to us, asking some questions, but allowing us to rest. after dinner, abby heather and i headed to bed. the next morning, after a wonderful nights rest (though a bit snug -as we were all in one bed that was slightly smaller than a full sized bed at home) we woke up to help prepare breakfast. talking with dans family was difficult as they did not speak much english and the little swahili that i have managed to pick up was not of much use since they spoke luo, which is their tribal language. that is something that i cannot remember if i have mentioned in my other blogs, but there are 42 different languages here in kenya! english and swahili are the official languages, but every tribe has their own language, which adds to the difficulty of conversing with someone. after an entire weekend of speaking with people who speak mainly luo, i managed to pick up one word - thank you. safe to say i dont have an ear for languages lol.
after helping prepare breakfast and taking a tour of their family farm, we headed back to the matatu station to continue our journey to jacks house. this time we managed to ride in a small bus headed that way so we were not forced to have such cramped quarters as we did riding to dans thank goodness! we had to switch matatus part way there though, and as usually happens when riding a matatu somewhere, it is never easy. this time rather than dealing with crowding we had to deal with a van that had could not stay in gear. every so often the car would stall out and someone would have to get out and push until the car would kick back into gear. by this time abby and i were almost peeing our pants laughing at the transportation experiences we had had over the weekend!
we made it to jacks as evening was hitting and we took some time to explore the land around his parents house as dinner was prepared. his family was very excited to meet us and the whole clan came with as we walked around. dan and jack found a spot where some "edible" bugs were flying about, they tried their darnedest to get us girls to eat them, but we kindly refused...i just could not get myself to eat a bug, much less a live one. after dinner we sat around talking and headed off to bed. jack showed us the room we girls would be sharing and asked if we needed anything, we responded that we were fine and he left. it was after he left that we realized that the bed we were intended to have all three of us sleep in was the size of a twin bed....no joke. we all started cracking up and decided to make the best of it. needless to say, we found a position and slept as best as we could with out moving. it was an experience that we still laugh at.
the next morning we got up, had a nice bucket shower, and headed off to church with jacks family. jacks dad is the pastor for their local church (and i have a feeling he spread the word about our visit that weekend) as church pulled quite the crowd. the service was in luo so i understood only the part that the boys translated for us, but it was fun to hear all the songs and see the dancing. during the service jacks dad had us introduce ourselves to the congregation and it was at this point that i started to fell slightly uncomfortable. we were most definitely the animals at the zoo. most everyone at the church had never seen a white person before and one of the kids asked jack if we were "jesus". of course this got jacks dad all excited and he started preaching about how jesus was working through us to bring improvements to their church. it was here that i got a bit itchy to leave. i was completely content to come to church and all that jazz, but i did not want anyone making the analogy that i was jesus. it made me feel as if they expected me to pull out my millions and build them a new church..thankfully they were content with a contribution to their collection and to get some pictures with us.
after church we headed back to jacks to have lunch and then packed up to make our last stop - lake victoria - before heading back to nairobi. we left jacks with no excitement (thank goodness) and headed into kisumu to see the lake. abby, heather and i were super excited to see the lake, as it is the second largest freshwater lake in the world so we had some expectations! unfortunately, they were not met. the lake was HUGE, dont get me wrong, you could see nothing but water for miles, but it was spoiled by the fact that people had backed their trucks and cars into the lake and were using it to wash them off. i was disgusted, and could only think of how polluted the water must be. we managed to find a small spot to sit and watch the sunset, which was lovely, but i couldnt get over how dirty the water was!
after watching the sunset we headed back to the bus station to take the night bus back to nairobi. it was a wonderful weekend, as we got the chance to meet jack and dans family and see how the average kenyan lives, as well as we able to see a lot of the countryside, but it was also an exhausting weekend of traveling! i realized how settled in i have gotten becuase as we pulled into the city in the morning heather and i both sighed in relief to be "home".
we managed to get about an hour of sleep before heading to orientation on monday to help welcome the new volunteers, as well as promote the program that we run in kibera in the hopes of recruiting some volunteers help distribute food in the slum. it was an exhausting day, since we running on no sleep, but it was nice to meet all the new volunteers and get back into the groove in nairobi.
welllll thats all i have time to update you all on right now! i will do my best to catch up on the past couple of weekends as soon as i can! i love you all and hope all is great at home!
xo
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